RESOLUTIONS

This year, I resolve to.....

How many times have we started a new year with those words? And how many times have we fallen out of our resolutions and felt as if we'd failed before the first month of the new year was over? For me, it's been many times through many years. So this year, I resolve to.....make no resolutions at all.

That doesn't mean I won't try be a better, kinder, heathier person. It only means that I resolve to not set myself up for failure this time around. Making promises we know we can't or won't keep only allows us to fall short before we really get started.

A new year can be a clean slate, but I feel sure that the person who devised New Year's Resolutions was not even able to keep all of his since surely he was just as human as the rest of us. We humans sometimes have the very best of intentions, but we're not perfect. We make mistakes.

My thoughts as the New Year quickly approaches are that since we're not perfect, let's not act as if we are. Let's not set ourselves up for failure this year, then kick ourselves for not being able to keep the promises we made on New Year's Eve.

Instead, let's decide to do the best we can to be healthier, more loving, more compassionate, and more patient this year. Those things will enhance our lives and the lives of those around us. While we're at it, let's all be kinder to ourselves too.

I recently read the following passage, reported to have been penned by Theodore Roosevelt and I think it's worth sharing:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO ALL!